When Pioneering Gets Personal

For the past few weeks, I have found it difficult not to notice the names of the weekly Torah readings.

Ki Tetze. Ki Tavo. Nitzavim. Vayelech.

Literally translated as When you go out. When you come in. Standing. And going.

For someone contemplating leaving a comfortable, established life and moving with his family to help build a new community in the Negev, the sequence of weekly Torah readings feels almost uncomfortably appropriate. Because that is roughly where I find myself: going and coming, standing and moving. Sometimes all within the same day.

There are moments when the decision feels obvious.

We have spent years speaking about Zionism, community, agriculture, resilience and the importance of strengthening Israel’s periphery. The Yachad Community offers an extraordinary opportunity not merely to speak about those things, but to try to live them. To take a patch of the Negev and together with a diverse group of families, build something from the ground up.

On those days, I wonder what exactly we are waiting for.

Then there are other days.

Days when the romance of pioneering gives way to the practicalities of uprooting a family. We have a familiarity, friends, schools, shules, kiddish clubs and a special community. A community in which our children know where they belong. And then comes the question that weighs on me more than any other: what right do I have to take that comfort away from my children because of an idea that inspires me? Adults can intellectualize disruption. We can call it challenge, growth, pioneering or purpose. Children may simply experience it as leaving their friends.

That distinction matters.

I can imagine the excitement of arriving in the Negev, of watching houses rise, trees and crops being planted, businesses being created and a community slowly acquiring its own rhythms and traditions. I can also imagine a child sitting in a new classroom wondering why we decided that the life they already loved was somehow insufficient.

And so the pendulum swings.

Ki Tetze – When You Go Out

Do we go out?

Leaving is embedded deeply in the Jewish and Zionist imagination. Avraham leaves his birthplace. The Jewish people leave Egypt. Generations left familiar countries to build lives in Israel. Going out is often the beginning of transformation. But leaving always has a cost.

Ki Tavo – When You Come In

And where exactly are we coming to?

There is a profound difference between moving somewhere and building somewhere. Yachad does not yet offer all the comforts of an established community. That is almost the point. We are not choosing between two finished products. We are being asked whether we want to participate in creating one. That is exhilarating – It is also terrifying.

Perhaps one of the great myths of pioneering is that pioneers are somehow free of doubt. I increasingly suspect the opposite is true. The significance of the decision lies precisely in understanding what is being risked.

Nitzavim – Standing

Sometimes the correct response is not yet to go anywhere – It is simply to stand. To look honestly at what we have. To acknowledge its value rather than diminish it in order to make leaving easier. One can argue that there is nothing spiritually inferior about comfort. There is enormous value in stability, friendship and community. In our case, that stability has been built over many years, and our children have inherited it. Perhaps standing still for a moment is an essential part of deciding whether to move.

And then inevitably comes Vayelech – Going

At some point, decisions cannot remain philosophical forever.

There is probably no spreadsheet or AI chat capable of resolving this one. No column in which to enter the value of childhood friendships. No discount rate for the uncertainty of beginning again. No formula that calculates the return on raising children in a pioneering community against the security of remaining in an established one.

And perhaps there is no single breakthrough moment either. I keep waiting for one — the conversation, experience or realization after which everything will suddenly become clear. Maybe that is unrealistic.

Perhaps major life decisions are rarely made when fear and apprehension disappear. Perhaps they are made when one source of meaning slowly begins to outweigh another. That is where I currently find myself. Excited. Apprehensive. Inspired. Protective. Ready to go. Content to stay.

Ki Tetze. Ki Tavo. Nitzavim. Vayelech – Going out. Coming in. Standing. Going.

Four parshiot that, at least this year, feel less like titles and more like a description of the emotional geography of trying to decide where our family belongs. And maybe that oscillation is not a sign that we have failed to decide. Maybe it is what taking the decision looks like.